


Dreams of Freedom

by Zirakinbar



Series: Star Wars & Star Wars Related Oneshots [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Slavery, Tatooine (Star Wars), Tatooine Slave Culture, Young Anakin Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25074127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zirakinbar/pseuds/Zirakinbar
Summary: Anakin Skywalker dreams of freedom. He dreams of Jedi with swords of glowing lights. He wins the Boonta Classic and they set him free and they- they-They don’t come.They never come.
Series: Star Wars & Star Wars Related Oneshots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1916962
Comments: 10
Kudos: 290





	Dreams of Freedom

_…_

_Anakin Skywalker dreams of freedom_.

He’s not quite sure what freedom is, but he knows that he doesn’t have it. He knows that when he was a few months old Gardulla the Hutt had ordered him chipped, away from his mother’s eyes so that she wouldn’t know where to cut to get it out. He knows this because his mother whispered it to him late at night in the way of all slave mothers, never daring to raise her voice even when she thought them to be alone. She tells him this and she tells him, “Be patient,” when he whines for food, and “be careful,” because it will only take a press of a button for him to die. “Be cautious,” and he knows that he is not free because these are not lessons that free children are taught.

_…_

_Anakin Skywalker dreams of freedom. He dreams that Gardulla the Hutt tires of them and at the auction there is a disaster – a bomb – and he and his mother are able to run, and-_

He is five. Gardulla the Hutt is fed up of a human woman that is no longer pretty with youth and a scurrying child that brings nothing useful to her. She sells them with a wave of her hand and they are bought off an auction lot – midrange, his mother’s mechanic fees earning them at least some interest although both together are worth less than a tenth of the pretty twi’lek girl who was led off by a Ryn whose tail lashed with smugness at the purchase.

“Mama,” Anakin whispers, tugging at her hand. “Mama, we need to be ready to run.”

His mama is warm and loves him and is so careful with her emotions, but an ugly looking fear snaps across her at the question. She sneaks her hand over his mouth. “Ani, baby, not now, _please_ ,” she whispers and he knows enough to silence himself when she sounds like that. He squirms silently, though, because he’s dreamed this and he knows what is coming, and they can be _free-_

The explosion that rings out deafens him even though he expects it. He is choking and coughing on the dust and there is blaster fire – bounty hunters are shooting. He tugs on his mother’s hand to run but she holds him back and he doesn’t understand _why_. The little twi’lek girl is running from the corpse of the Ryn that bought her – she’s fifty metres from him, a hundred – but the Ryn’s not adjusted the transmitter from the initial purchase range and one second she is running and the next she is nothing but fine droplets spread across the sand.

“We can’t run, Ani,” Shmi breathes into his ear. “Not with the transmitters. Be patient, baby. Be cautious, be careful, and _don’t run yet_.”

…

_Anakin Skywalker dreams of freedom. He dreams of an EMP blocker that he snatches, that a wild togruta woman knows how to activate. They wait until nightfall and then a small group of them make a run for it, huddled together so that their transmitters won’t go off and-_

He is – eight maybe? He isn’t sure because sometimes he thinks he was six or seven for longer than people are normally those ages, but children aren’t normally separated from their parents before nine. It’s custom, rather than law, but these things matter when you are an upstanding member of society like Watto. (This is what Watto tells them when he flies at Anakin’s head in a rage because the speeders aren’t fixed as fast as he wanted them to be.)

Watto’s sent him to the cantina, to fix old Bertulla’s ‘fresher, and the Rodian is hovering near him with a belt ready in case he starts to slack. She’s a mean old bitch, Kitster says, but his mama had set her lips in that flat line and told him that he should never even _breathe_ those words in future because that’s not what slaves do. He’s tired of being a slave, but he knows she is too and she’s had to put up with it much longer than he has.

There’s – an argument over something, two or three Shistavenan clumping together, teeth baring in open snarls at a being who’s covered in armour from head to toe. Bertulla scurries away, sensing a fight before it starts, and Anakin kneels closer to where he’s wriggling the wires. There’s a few more sharp words – fangs are bared and red eyes narrow – one of the Shistavenan lunges-

Blaster fire sends everyone to the ground and Bertulla shrieks about damages. “I’ll have your hides for this, _your hides!_ ” and at the end of it there’s three bodies on the ground and an armoured figure walking away. Anakin waits for a moment, breathes to make sure no one will see him, then darts to the nearest corpse. He knows it’s there – doesn’t know how exactly, but snatches the tiny blocker out of the Shistavenan’s belt and sticks it down his trousers.

It rests there as Bertulla returns to loot the corpses in fair payment for damages to her cantina, and then to shake her belt at Anakin for her ‘fresher not being repaired yet. It’s still there as he darts back home and there’s panic in his throat when a fierce, orange togruta slams him against a wall to demand it handed over.

“I stole it, laws of the desert mean it’s mine,” he snaps at her and tries to stamp on her foot. She’s new to being a slave, so new that he can still see the chain welts around her neck and wrists.

“You don’t even know how to use it you little brat,” she snarls at him and he clenches his fists. This is _his_ and he’s dreamt it and he and his mama are going to be _free_.

They go back to the quarters that Watto’s allowed them and Shmi watches with dark eyes as Anakin pulls out the blocker and the Togruta explains how to use it. “We can run,” the Togruta says, desperate. “Tonight, no one will expect it.”

“Where will we run to?” Shmi asks quietly, and Anakin doesn’t know how it happens but from there the Togruta woman ends up taking the EMP blocker with her and two other slaves from a street over – and leaves them behind. He would cry that night, but wasting water isn’t a good thing to do. His fingernails dig into his palms and he swallows desperately. A week later, the slaves’ corpses are found out in the desert by scavengers, dead from dehydration. The masters are angry at the waste of good money.

“Sandstorms may be the obvious danger in the desert, baby, but more often than not it’s the suns that kill,” Shmi whispers as she puts him to bed. “Be patient, our time will come. Be careful, be cautious.”

_…_

_Anakin Skywalker dreams of freedom. He dreams of jedi with swords of glowing lights. He wins the Boonta Classic and they set him free and they- they-_

_They don’t come._

_They never come._

…

_Anakin Skywalker is done with dreaming._

_…_

The words echo in his ears. Be patient, be careful, be cautious. The masters are watching. But that doesn’t mean _do nothing_.

He minds his tongue with Watto. He bows his head and he does his work – well, but he is careful to pull back from the genius that threatened his younger years. Genius gets you noticed. Genius gets you sold for high prices to beings that you don’t want to be sold to. Watto scolds and snaps but relaxes around a boy that’s finally learnt his place in the world.

The time passes slowly. He watches with sharp eyes and one day Watto goes to examine salvage, demanding Shmi accompany him. It’s an opportunity that Anakin’s been waiting for and when he’s sure that Watto is gone – patient, careful – he snatches the datapad from Watto’s quarter. It barely takes him ten minutes to crack every code Watto has protecting it. Electronics have always liked Anakin, and for this it feels almost like something is singing the answers in his ears as his fingers move. Watto is meticulous about his documentation but there’s a swooping feeling in Anakin’s gut as he realises it’s all written in Toydarian. That’s fine though. He’s well acquainted with patience now.

In any other place – in any other setting – Anakin would be considered brilliant. He acquires knowledge in a way that no one else he knows is able to. Learning Toydarian without any one else knowing – it’s difficult, but there’s a reason he installed every language pack he could find into Threepio. He learns the right formal language, he pieces it together step by step by step. A year later, when Watto leaves him in the shop alone he’s almost disappointed at how easy it is to make the changes that he needs. He’s careful, though, and cautious. He leaves no trace behind him. More importantly, he’s patient enough to set this down and wait – and wait, because there’s nothing more suspicious than taking action straight after assets are dispersed of.

He’s seventeen and watching from the shadows as Watto examines a wrecked speeder. His master is already snapping about how no one can repair this, they’d be fools to even try, what do they think they’re saying 3,000 credits for the sale, that’s _absurd_. He twitches, feels the pressure in his head as he _leans_ against the internal combustion even as the Dug owner snaps back to argue that it still works, look, _look,_ he can turn it on-

There’s freedom in the explosion that takes both of those masters.

There’s freedom again in the breath he takes, long and slow, as he slips away to sit diligently fixing a cracked hyperdrive in the store workroom. He’ll be told later about Watto’s death and he’ll act confused, worried about where his contract will go – and then brokenly grateful when it turns out that Watto freed him and his mother in his will. Freedom is the deep satisfaction he feels that _he has made his own destiny._

…

Anakin Skywalker is eighteen and a free man. He spends a long time looking out at the night sky when the second sun has finally slipped below the horizon.

“You could go out there, Ani,” his mother whispers to him, careworn lines seeming to fade away as she stares out there. “You can go anywhere you want to now.”

He nudges his hand into hers and they sit like that.

“Wouldn’t it be nice,” he says after a long pause. “If more people could go where they want to?”

Shmi sits next to him thoughtfully. “It would,” she says after a moment. “It would need a lot of change.”

Anakin nods. “A sandstorm can claim anybody,” he says and Shmi’s smile is – not kind, but not _unkind_ , either.

“Those are the risks of Tatooine,” she agrees.

He doesn’t know why things happen around him. He doesn’t know why he can _push_ , or why he knows when the sandstorms are coming, or how he can tell when the masters are coming on raids into the slave quarters. He doesn’t know what is happening in the wider galaxy, the slow descent into war that is coming.

He knows, though, that he is free and his mother is free, and that he _did this himself._ He knows that anything he does from now on – it’s _his choice_.

…

_Anakin Skywalker dreams of freedom. He’ll make Tatooine dream with him._


End file.
